After the amazing experience that was reading the Annihilation trilogy (which I consumed all at once over a few days), I was both excited and apprehensive to see what VanderMeer wrote next and whether it could live up to the stylised intelligence that Annihilation brought to the Sci-Fi genre. So when my copy of Borne came through the post, not only was it read in one sitting but Borne surpassed all my expectations and totally blew me away. I don't want to spoil anything at all because this is a story you need to experience from start to finish with, in VanderMeer style, no knowledge of what is to come. However, what I will say is that Borne's character is so carefully constructed that as a reader you are beside Rachel and her actions to the very last page, in all it's delight and all it's heartbreak. I really enjoyed the Annihilation trilogy, but I loved Borne. It is definitely worth a read and the best Sci-Fi book I've read this year!

VanderMeer's stand alone new novel is the first Science Fiction I have read in years, usually limiting my reading to Smart Thinking and general fiction. I'm so glad I jumped on this recommendation by a fellow bookseller as it was as weird, ethereal (I'll explain this in more detail further on...) and fascinating as the beautiful cover promises. VanderMeer sets his action mostly within the boundaries of a sprawling post apocalyptic city caught in the cross fire of two main powers; the sly, shrewd female Magician and Mord, a piece of human created 'biotech', a gigantic flying bear. Our protagonist is Rachel, a scavenger who ended up living in the City after the death of both her parents. Rachel, as protagonists go, is well rounded and fully believable. She is given a complex backstory and interacts with the other characters with intrigue. Of course the crux of this novel is the character of Borne, an (initially) small crustacean-like creature she finds nestling in Mord's fur. Any reader who is familiar with the anime series 'Parasyte' will immediately see the comparisons between Borne and Migi, as both of them are alien (potentially) creatures who learn language and socialisation from their human hosts. Rachel and Borne's relationship is complex, and the existence of Rachel's lover Wick, who is suspicious and probably jealous of Borne, complicates it further. The book explores human relationships and love in a unique way, as one of the main players isn't human, and is only just learning what love is and what it means to love something. This world is pieced together carefully and the overall effect the novel gives is one of full immersion and leaving the reader cleverly putting details together themselves. The text rejects the concept of providing the reader with all the information, which leaves this feel which could easily be described as 'vague', but this technique is so carefully achieved that it contributes to the overall literary prowess of the work. Extremely readable, enjoyable and I would recommend it of course to fans of well written science-fiction, but also to those reader who like me haven't reached for a science-fiction novel for a long long time. This will convince you that the genre is worth looking into.

The story of Borne and Mord, a gigantic flying biotech bear is told by Rachel a scavenger in the City. Through Rachel’s flashbacks and the stories she tells Borne, we see the world before the catastrophe that ruined it and the City. The characters of both Rachel and Borne are sympathetic and endearing, Borne in particular starts with a child’s curiosity with all the childlike questions that that entails, but soon surpasses Rachel in his understanding. A fantastic novel, strange and bizarre in places with a brutal setting yet it is a story of motherhood, love and hope in a world betrayed by big corporations and “mad” scientists.

After devouring the incredible Southern Reach trilogy, I was excited to read VanderMeer’s new novel. His writing, as always, is engaging, challenging and uncomfortable to read. The story he tells is believable and always grounded, even in its weirdest moments. The world building is incredible, and creepy feeling doesn’t cease to grow throughout the novel. He trusts the reader to be clever, too, allowing you to fill in the blanks without dumbing down the story. This takes place in an unnamed city after an ecological catastrophe, leaving humanity struggling for survival. All this appears to revolve around the headquarters of the mysterious Company, a biotech company packed full of genetically engineered animals. There are many threats to Rachel, our narrator and heroine, including a gigantic flying bear called Mord, a woman with extremely advanced technology known as the Magician, and the Mord Proxies (normal sized humanoid bears). All this is topped with poisonous rain, dangerous scavengers trying to survive, and inhospitable conditions that make surviving such a dangerous challenge. It has to be asked, is Mord a cautionary tale for GM? Rachel remembers her childhood in isolated fragments, and doesn’t really recall how she ended up in the city. Rachel’s misplaced sense of self-identity hints at something much bigger than the surface. Her partner, Wick, is a former biotech engineer who spends his time with a pool not suitable for swimming in, and amongst many of secrets he keeps to himself, has been reduced to a drug dealer. They are lucky to find each other, however, and have spent their time together creating a safe haven in an old apartment complex which has been safeguarded by Wick in unimaginable measures. The prose is beautiful and lends itself to an eerie literary landscape for these rich characters to inhabit. Borne, a strange creature Rachel finds on the matted hair of Mord, appears plant like but soon turns her life around. He is malleable, and has the capacity to learn - something which he does a lot of. Rachel takes on the role of his mother, but this soon uncovers even more dangers. Borne’s origins are shrouded in mystery, along with his intensions, his purpose and most of all his capabilities. Rachel’s love is selfless and all-encompassing and the descriptions, although they don’t give away a lot, are touching and gorgeous. VanderMeer’s use of language is impeccable. Borne lends itself nicely to the themes of nature versus nurture, self identity, parenting, childhood, survival, and the many different forms that love can take. Each of these are explored through roughly, if subtly, and add a beautifully meaningful touch to some of the absurd aspects of this novel. Overall, this fantastic novel is a quietly brutal, but ultimately hopeful, story of love and survival.

Where to even begin with Borne? Rachel scavenges in the ruins of a city ruled over by a giant, murderous, flying bear named Mord, hoping to find useful supplies for her lover Wick to cook up into drugs in his abandoned swimming pool. These supplies come in the form of bizarre biotech, running rampant after being unleashed by the Company, who also created Mord. One day, while scavenging for scraps tangled in the sleeping Mord’s fur, Rachel uncovers a bizarre, plant-like creature which she names Borne. She takes Borne back to the warren of tunnels and rooms she shares with Wick, who is wary of this unknown piece of biotech. He is all for rendering Borne down to make more biotech of his own, but Rachel won’t hear of it, and adopts the creature as her own. If this sounds like an off-the-wall setup, it’s nothing compared to some of the ideas going on elsewhere. To reveal any more of the creatures VanderMeer has populated this vivid world with would be a shame, as his constantly whirring imagination, once unleashed, results in a veritable menagerie of oddities. It is a genuine joy to have a new creature introduced, its place in the improvised ecosystem of the city only to be guessed at. The city itself is more sketched in, as is “The Company,” which is never otherwise named, nor is any reason for its existence or its strange experiments really given. Far from feeling like there’s information about either missing, this lends both a mythic quality, as if the events taking place could be some sort of fable or dream. It’s Alice in Wonderland, but for the modern age, on very strong drugs: “In the city, the line between nightmare and reality was fluid, just as the context of the words killer and death had shifted over time. Perhaps Mord was responsible. Perhaps we all were.” What certainly doesn’t lack for detail is Rachel’s find, the titular Borne. VanderMeer lavishes attention on the pseudopod waving entity, his rapid physical development on a par with his accelerated learning as he absorbs information from the world around him. Borne loves wordplay, rolling words around as if tasting them, and finding ways to use them that sound like nonsense but have a charming underlying logic to them. His silliness belies his potential for other, more dangerous habits, but he is definitely equal parts weird and wonderful, with his love for Rachel never in question as she teaches him about their world. There’s a very strong sense that Borne’s way of looking at the world is totally different to ours, not just in the literal meaning of how he uses his senses, but in how he interprets everything. It’s as if he has totally different frames of reference to the rest of us. His own innate culture is so alien, so other, that he has to work hard to reconcile it with what he’s experiencing. It shows incredible skill that this feeling of otherness comes across so well, because it is a difficult thing to convey in writing. Many others have tried and failed. In terms of any kind of grand narrative arc, Borne is one of those books where it feels impossible to predict what will happen next, let alone guess at what the endgame might even resemble. The endlessly imaginative world-building VanderMeer deploys means we’re never sure what might be around the next corner, and consequently what effect this might have on the plot. The menacing presence of Wick’s rival the Magician ensures there’s a steady undercurrent of tension – as if the giant flying murder bear wasn’t enough – and there’s a steady raising of the stakes and plenty of ominous foreshadowing. In all honesty though, it’s best to know as little as possible about the plot, lest the freewheeling, down-the-rabbit-hole experience of following it be compromised. Borne is a dizzying profusion of wondrous ideas, packed with dark imagination and fizzing with creativity, as playful as its eponymous tentacled critter and endlessly inventive. It is by turns sweet and unsettling, cosy and epic, clever and funny; it’s an expertly sustained flight of fancy, and one of the most wonderfully odd books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.